The Jungle NYC Reviews and Tickets

"The show summons, with uncanny clarity, the vigorous chaos from which a provisional order gradually emerges...There is tension, of course, and apprehension and suspicion...But the clashes are often comic, and the pure energy of actors creating a world of people creating a world of their own is exhilarating...A work of absorbing theater, which uses the immediacy of that art to conjure the paradoxes and confusions of a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives."
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"If you’re looking for effortless exposition or delicate characterization, this nearly three-hour immersive play won’t afford it. It’s not artful as a piece of drama; rather, it’s a deliberate cacophony of voices...The piece is impressive, and it has moments of virtuosity, especially in the music...But when the gorgeously openhearted gesture of making theater for refugees turns into a show for the wealthy about refugees, part of its moral beauty slips away."
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"It's a stunning feat of design, but it's not the only aspect that makes this marvelously realized production...essential viewing...The work packs a powerful punch in the current political era...The play's writing sometimes lacks cohesion and feels manipulative, making it not always as artful as the production. But 'The Jungle' nonetheless registers with a throbbing authenticity only amplified by the superb performances of the large, multinational ensemble and the virtuosic immersive staging."
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"In spite of exquisite design and a substantial production, the play itself is shaky...Despite extreme efforts at verisimilitude, a noble purpose, and a vitally important subject, the storytelling comes across as heavy-handed...substituting atmosphere for dramaturgy...It’s devastating to spend all this time in a room with these characters and in this place, and emerge knowing less than when we went in. Disillusion may be part of the point, but it also feels like a lost opportunity."
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"Anyone who is capable of a scintilla of human decency could not help but be moved by the human face this intense and powerfully immersive play puts on people fleeing oppression in their homelands...To be sure, the two-hour, 45-minute production has its excesses...The drama’s success in imbuing with personality those trapped in the camp...may be its most important achievement. No weak link exists in the 18-member ensemble, and some actors offer particularly vivid accounts."
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“An emotionally jarring production that has been transplanted from London's Young Vic...vibrates with truth through every flattering and unflattering circumstance surrounding a momentary epicenter of Europe's refugee crisis. Led by directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, the piece is more an experience than a play, physically and psychologically rebuilding a slice of life to ultra-realistic effect in the middle of Dumbo, Brooklyn."
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"Under the direction of Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, none of these fine actors -- nor anyone else in the company -- ring a false note, even as they scatter through the audience, performing tense and intimate scenes inches away from the viewers...To see 'The Jungle' right now is to experience the forces of history in a way that happens in the theatre only rarely...As this towering work makes clear, mercy must come first."
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"This is not merely the story of a triumphant theatrical production. 'The Jungle' is living history, which would make it impressive enough. But the method of the piece inserts 'we, the people,' literally into the action...Patrons are not merely presented with an impassioned representation of this monstrous refugee camp...we are plunked inside the story, inside the migrant camp...The most riveting moments come from John Pfumojena as Okot, the 17-year-old refugee from Darfur."
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"Extraordinary...A smart, searching, provocative piece the finds hope in this miserable place and questions how and why the world allows human beings to live like that...It’s an immersive experience that puts spectators inside a restaurant in the camp, with the action going on all around us...It both tells a story that’s important and presents that story with such bracing immediacy...The sprawling cast...is uniformly excellent but also a true ensemble."
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"It’s a unique immersive theatre experience – designed to help us understand, if we can, what it feels like to sacrifice homeland, family, jobs – indeed, identity itself – in search of a new home. The miracle of 'The Jungle' is that it’s not a song of despair, but rather of hope – passionate, unswerving hope. Slowly, from the chaos, characters emerge...It’s a remarkable vision of what might be, if only we could learn to live together."
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"I marvel at directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin’s brilliant control over this beast of a play and this battalion of an ensemble, while making sure that every audience member can observe and enter the action without hindering it in this tricky space...The performers are powerful and connected: when one sings a prayer, you can feel the same heartbeat syncopated across the room...The play is about heavy things, yet it does not lack humor, nor tenderness, nor hope."
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"A remarkable production...Shows what theater can do at its best to open us up to a world we otherwise ignore...The show makes clear the joy that some felt in this place that had become their home...Such exuberance, we learn, is provisional, abruptly interrupted by the grim reality of their lives, the present only an occasional respite from their gruesome pasts."
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“The audience is intended to experience as intimately as possible the emotional and physical crises endured by the bedeviled migrants and the…British NGOs seeking to help them…The action is both realistic and stylized, serious and (occasionally) funny, and the dialogue delivered both quietly and, more frequently, argumentatively…May all such worthy chance-takers eventually succeed, may our own government never build a border wall, and may we and other nations create humane immigration policies.”
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“The refugee crisis can seem like an abstract, far-off issue. But ‘The Jungle’ drops us smack in the center of a camp of asylum-seekers — with all its slapdash infrastructure, clash of cultures and pulsing humanity...Intermingling moments of conflict and horror with lighter moments of warmth, music and laughter...That rarest of theatrical experiences. It makes us think, it makes us feel, and it challenges us to find the human faces in the masses of images we see on newscasts.”
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“’The Jungle’ depicts the day-to-day existence of Middle Eastern migrants living on a landfill just across the Channel from England in 2015-16 while awaiting asylum and enduring the threat of eviction...The drama co-stars multiple real-life former denizens of the camp. They are charismatic actors and help elevate documentary theater into a spellbinding, haunting play...As directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, 'The Jungle' navigates this territory without condescension.”
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"Even if you've read or heard a lot about the refugees and some of the shocking things they've been through, nothing will prepare you for being in the thick of it as the characters pour their hearts out right in front of you. This is thanks to some stellar work from the entire company...There's no mistaking that this is one of the most vital pieces of theatre ever to grace the stage, at once dispiriting and inspiring - the human capacity for hope in adversity is quite an extraordinary thing."
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"This is that rare thing: a necessary piece of theatre...If I was overwhelmed by the play, it is because it raises a host of issues and because the production itself seems a mix of the structured and the spontaneous: the evening blends order and chaos, reflections and rants, songs and scuffles in astonishing profusion. It is also powerfully performed...The result is one of those priceless evenings that enlarges our understanding while appealing to our emotions."
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"That you feel the extent of your privilege here is a credit to Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's piece, an amalgamation of their experiences of the migrant camp at Calais. 'The Jungle' asks us to witness, rather than weep. It demands our empathy, never our pity...This is the most important play of the decade, not just because it covers the big issue of our times so comprehensively, but because it humanises it – and at a time when attitudes to refugees are hardening worldwide."
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"Directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, it’s performed with both urgency and wit...Even if some of the characters’ arguments feel too obviously shoehorned in, 'The Jungle' isn’t preachy. Instead it proves tense, moving and courageous. A tribute to hope and resourcefulness, it’s also a sobering reminder of political issues that remain tragically unresolved."
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"Not to be that person, but I did – in between the exhilarating scenes of fevered dancing, singing and drumming, in between the desperate factional squabbles and tense struggles and heartbreaking stories – feel a level of discomfort with the fact that this whole spectacle was engineered by two white writers, and two white directors...Where 'The Jungle' shines is in showing the clash of world-building optimism and utter desperation behind this contested, now lost patch of Calais."
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"It’s morally dubious to call the presentation of such matter 'exciting', but Murphy and Robertson — who spent several months working at the camp — are well aware both of what they want to say and how it needs to be delivered for maximum impact. I don’t think I have ever seen a West End theatre’s space so thoroughly and immersively remade...I don’t think I have ever seen a West End theatre’s space so thoroughly and immersively remade."
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"Informed by their experiences from running a theatre at the camp, the two young playwrights have chronicled the desperate, hopeful stories of the camp’s residents in what is a thoroughly affecting piece of theatre. It’s West End theatre like you’ve never seen...Robertson and Murphy do well to avoid the play coming across as preachy, they let the audience feel by simply telling the story."
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"The music is the beating heart of the show. John Pfumojena’s compositions unite audience and actors through mellifluous harmonies. The Jungle features stellar performances across the ensemble...A transferred production rarely manages to achieve the same energy, the same magic as its original. The West End transfer of 'The Jungle' not only matches the excellence of the Young Vic version, it raises the bar."
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